Campaign 2000: Promoting the National Interest

By Condoleezza Rice

From Foreign Affairs, January/February 2000

Summary: With no Soviet threat, America has found it exceedingly difficult to define its
"national interest." Foreign policy in a Republican administration should refocus the country on
key priorities: building a military ready to ensure American power, coping with rogue regimes,
and managing Beijing and Moscow. Above all, the next president must be comfortable with
America's special role as the world's leader.

Condoleezza Rice is Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and Professor of Political Science at
Stanford University. She is also foreign policy adviser to Republican presidential candidate
George W. Bush.

LIFE AFTER THE COLD WAR

The United States has found it exceedingly difficult to define its "national interest" in the
absence of Soviet power. That we do not know how to think about what follows the U.S.-Soviet
confrontation is clear from the continued references to the "post-Cold War period." Yet such
periods of transition are important, because they offer strategic opportunities. During these fluid
times, one can affect the shape of the world to come.

The enormity of the moment is obvious. The Soviet Union was more than just a traditional
global competitor; it strove to lead a universal socialist alternative to markets and democracy.
The Soviet Union quarantined itself and many often-unwitting captives and clients from the
rigors of international capitalism. In the end, it sowed the seeds of its own destruction, becoming
in isolation an economic and technological dinosaur.

But this is only part of the story. The Soviet Union's collapse coincided with another great
revolution. Dramatic changes in information technology and the growth of "knowledge-based"
industries altered the very basis of economic dynamism, accelerating already noticeable trends in
economic interaction that often circumvented and ignored state boundaries. As competition for
capital investment has intensified, states have faced difficult choices about their internal
economic, political, and social structures. As the prototype of this "new economy," the United
States has seen its economic influence grow -- and with it, its diplomatic influence. America has
emerged as both the principal benefactor of these simultaneous revolutions and their beneficiary.

The process of outlining a new foreign policy must begin by recognizing that the United States is
in a remarkable position. Powerful secular trends are moving the world toward economic
openness and -- more unevenly -- democracy and individual liberty. Some states have one foot
on the train and the other off. Some states still hope to find a way to decouple democracy and
economic progress. Some hold on to old hatreds as diversions from the modernizing task at hand.
But the United States and its allies are on the right side of history.
In such an environment, American policies must help further these favorable trends by
maintaining a disciplined and consistent foreign policy that separates the important from the
trivial. The Clinton administration has assiduously avoided implementing such an agenda.
Instead, every issue has been taken on its own terms -- crisis by crisis, day by day. It takes
courage to set priorities because doing so is an admission that American foreign policy cannot be
all things to all people -- or rather, to all interest groups. The Clinton administration's approach
has its advantages: If priorities and intent are not clear, they cannot be criticized. But there is a
high price to pay for this approach. In a democracy as pluralistic as ours, the absence of an
articulated "national interest" either produces a fertile ground for those wishing to withdraw from
the world or creates a vacuum to be filled by parochial groups and transitory pressures.

THE ALTERNATIVE

American foreign policy in a Republican administration should refocus the United States on the
national interest and the pursuit of key priorities. These tasks are

* to ensure that America's military can deter war, project power, and fight in defense of its
interests if deterrence fails;

* to promote economic growth and political openness by extending free trade and a stable
international monetary system to all committed to these principles, including in the western
hemisphere, which has too often been neglected as a vital area of U.S. national interest;

* to renew strong and intimate relationships with allies who share American values and can thus
share the burden of promoting peace, prosperity, and freedom;

* to focus U.S. energies on comprehensive relationships with the big powers, particularly Russia
and China, that can and will mold the character of the international political system; and

* to deal decisively with the threat of rogue regimes and hostile powers, which is increasingly
taking the forms of the potential for terrorism and the development of weapons of mass
destruction (WMD).

INTERESTS AND IDEALS

Power matters, both the exercise of power by the United States and the ability of others to
exercise it. Yet many in the United States are (and have always been) uncomfortable with the
notions of power politics, great powers, and power balances. In an extreme form, this discomfort
leads to a reflexive appeal instead to notions of international law and norms, and the belief that
the support of many states -- or even better, of institutions like the United Nations -- is essential
to the legitimate exercise of power. The "national interest" is replaced with "humanitarian
interests" or the interests of "the international community." The belief that the United States is
exercising power legitimately only when it is doing so on behalf of someone or something else
was deeply rooted in Wilsonian thought, and there are strong echoes of it in the Clinton
administration. To be sure, there is nothing wrong with doing something that benefits all
humanity, but that is, in a sense, a second-order effect. America's pursuit of the national interest
will create conditions that promote freedom, markets, and peace. Its pursuit of national interests
after World War II led to a more prosperous and democratic world. This can happen again.

So multilateral agreements and institutions should not be ends in themselves. U.S. interests are
served by having strong alliances and can be promoted within the U.N. and other multilateral
organizations, as well as through well-crafted international agreements. But the Clinton
administration has often been so anxious to find multilateral solutions to problems that it has
signed agreements that are not in America's interest. The Kyoto treaty is a case in point:
whatever the facts on global warming, a treaty that does not include China and exempts
"developing" countries from tough standards while penalizing American industry cannot
possibly be in America's national interest.

Similarly, the arguments about U.S. ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty are
instructive. Since 1992, the United States has refrained unilaterally from testing nuclear
weapons. It is an example to the rest of the world yet does not tie its own hands "in perpetuity" if
testing becomes necessary again. But in pursuit of a "norm" against the acquisition of nuclear
weapons, the United States signed a treaty that was not verifiable, did not deal with the threat of
the development of nuclear weapons by rogue states, and threatened the reliability of the nuclear
stockpile. Legitimate congressional concerns about the substance of the treaty were ignored
during negotiations. When faced with the defeat of a bad treaty, the administration attacked the
motives of its opponents -- incredibly branding long-standing internationalists like Senators
Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) and John Warner (R-Va.) as isolationists.

Certainly, Republican presidents have not been immune to the practice of pursuing symbolic
agreements of questionable value. According to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, some
52 conventions, agreements, and treaties still await ratification; some even date back to 1949.
But the Clinton administration's attachment to largely symbolic agreements and its pursuit of, at
best, illusory "norms" of international behavior have become an epidemic. That is not leadership.
Neither is it isolationist to suggest that the United States has a special role in the world and
should not adhere to every international convention and agreement that someone thinks to
propose.

Even those comfortable with notions of the "national interest" are still queasy with a focus on
power relationships and great-power politics. The reality is that a few big powers can radically
affect international peace, stability, and prosperity. These states are capable of disruption on a
grand scale, and their fits of anger or acts of beneficence affect hundreds of millions of people.
By reason of size, geographic position, economic potential, and military strength, they are
capable of influencing American welfare for good or ill. Moreover, that kind of power is usually
accompanied by a sense of entitlement to play a decisive role in international politics. Great
powers do not just mind their own business.

Some worry that this view of the world ignores the role of values, particularly human rights and
the promotion of democracy. In fact, there are those who would draw a sharp line between power
politics and a principled foreign policy based on values. This polarized view -- you are either a
realist or devoted to norms and values -- may be just fine in academic debate, but it is a disaster
for American foreign policy. American values are universal. People want to say what they think,
worship as they wish, and elect those who govern them; the triumph of these values is most
assuredly easier when the international balance of power favors those who believe in them. But
sometimes that favorable balance of power takes time to achieve, both internationally and within
a society. And in the meantime, it is simply not possible to ignore and isolate other powerful
states that do not share those values.

The Cold War is a good example. Few would deny that the collapse of the Soviet Union
profoundly transformed the picture of democracy and human rights in eastern and central Europe
and the former Soviet territories. Nothing improved human rights as much as the collapse of
Soviet power. Throughout the Cold War, the United States pursued a policy that promoted
political liberty, using every instrument from the Voice of America to direct presidential
intervention on behalf of dissidents. But it lost sight neither of the importance of the geopolitical
relationship with Moscow nor of the absolute necessity of retaining robust American military
power to deter an all-out military confrontation.

In the 1970s, the Soviet Union was at the height of its power -- which it was more than willing to
use. Given its weak economic and technological base, the victories of that period turned out to be
Pyrrhic. President Reagan's challenge to Soviet power was both resolute and well timed. It
included intense substantive engagements with Moscow across the entire range of issues
captured in the "four-part agenda" (arms control, human rights, economic issues, and regional
conflicts). The Bush administration then focused greater attention on rolling back Soviet power
in central and eastern Europe. As the Soviet Union's might waned, it could no longer defend its
interests and gave up peacefully (thankfully) to the West -- a tremendous victory for Western
power and also for human liberty.

SETTING PRIORITIES

The United States has many sources of power in the pursuit of its goals. The global economy
demands economic liberalization, greater openness and transparency, and at the very least,
access to information technology. International economic policies that leverage the advantages of
the American economy and expand free trade are the decisive tools in shaping international
politics. They permit us to reach out to states as varied as South Africa and India and to engage
our neighbors in the western hemisphere in a shared interest in economic prosperity. The growth
of entrepreneurial classes throughout the world is an asset in the promotion of human rights and
individual liberty, and it should be understood and used as such. Yet peace is the first and most
important condition for continued prosperity and freedom. America's military power must be
secure because the United States is the only guarantor of global peace and stability. The current
neglect of America's armed forces threatens its ability to maintain peace.

The Bush administration had been able to reduce defense spending somewhat at the end of the
Cold War in 1991. But the Clinton administration witlessly accelerated and deepened these cuts.
The results were devastating: military readiness declined, training suffered, military pay slipped
15 percent below civilian equivalents, morale plummeted, and the services cannibalized existing
equipment to keep airplanes flying, ships afloat, and tanks moving. The increased difficulty in
recruiting people to the armed forces or retaining them is hardly surprising.
Moreover, the administration began deploying American forces abroad at a furious pace -- an
average of once every nine weeks. As it cut defense spending to its lowest point as a percentage
of GDP since Pearl Harbor, the administration deployed the armed forces more often than at any
time in the last 50 years. Some of the deployments themselves were questionable, such as in
Haiti. But more than anything it was simply unwise to multiply missions in the face of a
continuing budget reduction. Means and mission were not matched, and (predictably) the already
thinly stretched armed forces came close to a breaking point. When all these trends became so
obvious and embarrassing that they could no longer be ignored, the administration finally
requested increased defense spending. But the "death spiral," as the administration's own
undersecretary of defense called it -- robbing procurement and research and development simply
to operate the armed forces -- was already well under way. That the administration did nothing,
choosing instead to live off the fruits of Reagan's military buildup, constitutes an extraordinary
neglect of the fiduciary responsibilities of the commander in chief.

Now the next president will be confronted with a prolonged job of repair. Military readiness will
have to take center stage, particularly those aspects that affect the living conditions of the troops
-- military pay, housing -- and also training. New weapons will have to be procured in order to
give the military the capacity to carry out today's missions. But even in its current state, the
American military still enjoys a commanding technological lead and therefore has a battlefield
advantage over any competitor. Thus the next president should refocus the Pentagon's priorities
on building the military of the 21st century rather than continuing to build on the structure of the
Cold War. U.S. technological advantages should be leveraged to build forces that are lighter and
more lethal, more mobile and agile, and capable of firing accurately from long distances. In order
to do this, Washington must reallocate resources, perhaps in some cases skipping a generation of
technology to make leaps rather than incremental improvements in its forces.

The other major concern is a loss of focus on the mission of the armed forces. What does it mean
to deter, fight, and win wars and defend the national interest? First, the American military must
be able to meet decisively the emergence of any hostile military power in the Asia-Pacific
region, the Middle East, the Persian Gulf, and Europe -- areas in which not only our interests but
also those of our key allies are at stake. America's military is the only one capable of this
deterrence function, and it must not be stretched or diverted into areas that weaken these broader
responsibilities. It is the role that the United States played when Saddam Hussein threatened the
Persian Gulf, and it is the power needed to deter trouble on the Korean Peninsula or across the
Taiwan Strait. In the latter cases, the goal is to make it inconceivable for North Korea or China to
use force because American military power is a compelling factor in their equations.

Some small-scale conflicts clearly have an impact on American strategic interests. Such was the
case with Kosovo, which was in the backyard of America's most important strategic alliance:
NATO. In fact, Yugoslav President Slobodan MiloŠevic's rejection of peaceful coexistence with
the Kosovar Albanians threatened to rock the area's fragile ethnic balance. Eastern Europe is a
patchwork of ethnic minorities. For the most part, Hungarians and Romanians, Bulgarians and
Turks, and even Ukrainians and Russians have found a way since 1991 of preventing their
differences from exploding. MiloŠevic has been the exception, and the United States had an
overriding strategic interest in stopping him. There was, of course, a humanitarian disaster
looming as well, but in the absence of concerns based on the interests of the alliance, the case for
intervention would have been more tenuous.

The Kosovo war was conducted incompetently, in part because the administration's political
goals kept shifting and in part because it was not, at the start, committed to the decisive use of
military force. That President Clinton was surprised at MiloŠevic's tenacity is, well, surprising. If
there is any lesson from history, it is that small powers with everything to lose are often more
stubborn than big powers, for whom the conflict is merely one among many problems. The
lesson, too, is that if it is worth fighting for, you had better be prepared to win. Also, there must
be a political game plan that will permit the withdrawal of our forces -- something that is still
completely absent in Kosovo.

But what if our values are attacked in areas that are not arguably of strategic concern? Should the
United States not try to save lives in the absence of an overriding strategic rationale? The next
American president should be in a position to intervene when he believes, and can make the case,
that the United States is duty-bound to do so. "Humanitarian intervention" cannot be ruled out a
priori. But a decision to intervene in the absence of strategic concerns should be understood for
what it is. Humanitarian problems are rarely only humanitarian problems; the taking of life or
withholding of food is almost always a political act. If the United States is not prepared to
address the underlying political conflict and to know whose side it is on, the military may end up
separating warring parties for an indefinite period. Sometimes one party (or both) can come to
see the United States as the enemy. Because the military cannot, by definition, do anything
decisive in these "humanitarian" crises, the chances of misreading the situation and ending up in
very different circumstances are very high. This was essentially the problem of "mission creep"
in Somalia.

The president must remember that the military is a special instrument. It is lethal, and it is meant
to be. It is not a civilian police force. It is not a political referee. And it is most certainly not
designed to build a civilian society. Military force is best used to support clear political goals,
whether limited, such as expelling Saddam from Kuwait, or comprehensive, such as demanding
the unconditional surrender of Japan and Germany during World War II. It is one thing to have a
limited political goal and to fight decisively for it; it is quite another to apply military force
incrementally, hoping to find a political solution somewhere along the way. A president entering
these situations must ask whether decisive force is possible and is likely to be effective and must
know how and when to get out. These are difficult criteria to meet, so U.S. intervention in these
"humanitarian" crises should be, at best, exceedingly rare.

This does not mean that the United States must ignore humanitarian and civil conflicts around
the world. But the military cannot be involved everywhere. Often, these tasks might be better
carried out by regional actors, as modeled by the Australian-led intervention in East Timor. The
U.S. might be able to lend financial, logistical, and intelligence support. Sometimes tough,
competent diplomacy in the beginning can prevent the need for military force later. Using the
American armed forces as the world's "911" will degrade capabilities, bog soldiers down in
peacekeeping roles, and fuel concern among other great powers that the United States has
decided to enforce notions of "limited sovereignty" worldwide in the name of humanitarianism.
This overly broad definition of America's national interest is bound to backfire as others arrogate
the same authority to themselves. Or we will find ourselves looking to the United Nations to
sanction the use of American military power in these cases, implying that we will do so even
when our vital interests are involved, which would also be a mistake.

DEALING WITH THE POWERFUL

Another crucial task for the United States is to focus on relations with other powerful states.
Although the United States is fortunate to count among its friends several great powers, it is
important not to take them for granted -- so that there is a firm foundation when it comes time to
rely on them. The challenges of China and North Korea require coordination and cooperation
with Japan and South Korea. The signals that we send to our real partners are important. Never
again should an American president go to Beijing for nine days and refuse to stop in Tokyo or
Seoul.

There is work to do with the Europeans, too, on defining what holds the transatlantic alliance
together in the absence of the Soviet threat. NATO is badly in need of attention in the wake of
Kosovo and with the looming question of its further enlargement in 2002 and beyond. The door
to NATO for the remaining states of eastern and central Europe should remain open, as many are
actively preparing to meet the criteria for membership. But the parallel track of NATO's own
evolution, its attention to the definition of its mission, and its ability to digest and then defend
new members has been neglected. Moreover, the United States has an interest in shaping the
European defense identity -- welcoming a greater European military capability as long as it is
within the context of NATO. NATO has a very full agenda. Membership in NATO will mean
nothing to anyone if the organization is no longer militarily capable and if it is unclear about its
mission.

For America and our allies, the most daunting task is to find the right balance in our policy
toward Russia and China. Both are equally important to the future of international peace, but the
challenges they pose are very different. China is a rising power; in economic terms, that should
be good news, because in order to maintain its economic dynamism, China must be more
integrated into the international economy. This will require increased openness and transparency
and the growth of private industry. The political struggle in Beijing is over how to maintain the
Communist Party's monopoly on power. Some see economic reform, growth, and a better life for
the Chinese people as the key. Others see the inherent contradiction in loosening economic
control and maintaining the party's political dominance. As China's economic problems multiply
due to slowing growth rates, failing banks, inert state enterprises, and rising unemployment, this
struggle will intensify.

It is in America's interest to strengthen the hands of those who seek economic integration
because this will probably lead to sustained and organized pressures for political liberalization.
There are no guarantees, but in scores of cases from Chile to Spain to Taiwan, the link between
democracy and economic liberalization has proven powerful over the long run. Trade and
economic interaction are, in fact, good -- not only for America's economic growth but for its
political aims as well. Human rights concerns should not move to the sidelines in the meantime.
Rather, the American president should press the Chinese leadership for change. But it is wise to
remember that our influence through moral arguments and commitment is still limited in the face
of Beijing's pervasive political control. The big trends toward the spread of information, the
access of young Chinese to American values through educational exchanges and training, and the
growth of an entrepreneurial class that does not owe its livelihood to the state are, in the end,
likely to have a more powerful effect on life in China.

Although some argue that the way to support human rights is to refuse trade with China, this
punishes precisely those who are most likely to change the system. Put bluntly, Li Peng and the
Chinese conservatives want to continue to run the economy by state fiat. Of course, there should
be tight export controls on the transfer of militarily sensitive technology to China. But trade in
general can open up the Chinese economy and, ultimately, its politics too. This view requires
faith in the power of markets and economic freedom to drive political change, but it is a faith
confirmed by experiences around the globe.

Even if there is an argument for economic interaction with Beijing, China is still a potential
threat to stability in the Asia-Pacific region. Its military power is currently no match for that of
the United States. But that condition is not necessarily permanent. What we do know is that
China is a great power with unresolved vital interests, particularly concerning Taiwan and the
South China Sea. China resents the role of the United States in the Asia-Pacific region. This
means that China is not a "status quo" power but one that would like to alter Asia's balance of
power in its own favor. That alone makes it a strategic competitor, not the "strategic partner" the
Clinton administration once called it. Add to this China's record of cooperation with Iran and
Pakistan in the proliferation of ballistic-missile technology, and the security problem is obvious.
China will do what it can to enhance its position, whether by stealing nuclear secrets or by trying
to intimidate Taiwan.

China's success in controlling the balance of power depends in large part on America's reaction
to the challenge. The United States must deepen its cooperation with Japan and South Korea and
maintain its commitment to a robust military presence in the region. It should pay closer
attention to India's role in the regional balance. There is a strong tendency conceptually to
connect India with Pakistan and to think only of Kashmir or the nuclear competition between the
two states. But India is an element in China's calculation, and it should be in America's, too.
India is not a great power yet, but it has the potential to emerge as one.

The United States also has a deep interest in the security of Taiwan. It is a model of democratic
and market-oriented development, and it invests significantly in the mainland's economy. The
longstanding U.S. commitment to a "one-China" policy that leaves to a future date the resolution
of the relationship between Taipei and Beijing is wise. But that policy requires that neither side
challenge the status quo and that Beijing, as the more powerful actor, renounce the use of force.
U.S. resolve anchors this policy. The Clinton administration tilted toward Beijing, when, for
instance, it used China's formulation of the "three no's" during the president's trip there. Taiwan
has been looking for attention and reassurance ever since. If the United States is resolute, peace
can be maintained in the Taiwan Strait until a political settlement on democratic terms is
available.

Some things take time. U.S. policy toward China requires nuance and balance. It is important to
promote China's internal transition through economic interaction while containing Chinese
power and security ambitions. Cooperation should be pursued, but we should never be afraid to
confront Beijing when our interests collide.

RUSSIAN WEAKNESS

Russia presents a different challenge. It still has many of the attributes of a great power: a large
population, vast territory, and military potential. But its economic weakness and problems of
national identity threaten to overwhelm it. Moscow is determined to assert itself in the world and
often does so in ways that are at once haphazard and threatening to American interests. The
picture is complicated by Russia's own internal transition -- one that the United States wants to
see succeed. The old Soviet system has broken down, and some of the basic elements of
democratic development are in place. People are free to say what they think, vote for whom they
please, and (for the most part) worship freely. But the democratic fragments are not
institutionalized -- with the exception of the Communist Party, political parties are weak -- and
the balance of political power is so strongly in favor of the president that he often rules simply by
decree. Of course, few pay attention to Boris Yelstin's decrees, and the Russian government has
been mired in inaction and stagnation for at least three years. Russia's economic troubles and its
high-level corruption have been widely discussed in recent months; Russia's economy is not
becoming a market but is mutating into something else. Widespread barter, banks that are not
banks, billions of rubles stashed abroad and in mattresses at home, and bizarre privatization
schemes that have enriched the so-called reformers give Moscow's economy a medieval tinge.

The problem for U.S. policy is that the Clinton administration's embrace of Yeltsin and those
who were thought to be reformers around him has failed. Yeltsin is Russia's president and clearly
the United States had to deal with the head of state. But support for democracy and economic
reform became support for Yeltsin. His agenda became the American agenda. The United States
certified that reform was taking place where it was not, continuing to disburse money from the
International Monetary Fund in the absence of any evidence of serious change. The curious
privatization methods were hailed as economic liberalization; the looting of the country's assets
by powerful people either went unnoticed or was ignored. The realities in Russia simply did not
accord with the administration's script about Russian economic reform. The United States should
not be faulted for trying to help. But, as the Russian reformer Grigori Yavlinsky has said, the
United States should have "told the truth" about what was happening.

Now we have a dual credibility problem -- with Russians and with Americans. There are signs of
life in the Russian economy. The financial crash of August 1998 forced import substitution, and
domestic production has increased as the resilient Russian people have taken matters into their
own hands. Rising oil prices have helped as well. But these are short-term fixes. There is no
longer a consensus in America or Europe on what to do next with Russia. Frustrated expectations
and "Russia fatigue" are direct consequences of the "happy talk" in which the Clinton
administration engaged.

Russia's economic future is now in the hands of the Russians. The country is not without assets,
including its natural resources and an educated population. It is up to Russia to make structural
reforms, particularly concerning the rule of law and the tax codes, so that investors -- foreign and
domestic -- will provide the capital needed for economic growth. That opportunity will arise
once there is a new government in Moscow after last December's Duma elections and next June's
presidential election. But the cultural changes ultimately needed to sustain a functioning civil
society and a market-based economy may take a generation. Western openness to Russia's
people, particularly its youth, in exchange programs and contact with the private sector and
educational opportunities can help that process. It is also important to engage the leadership of
Russia's diverse regions, where economic and social policies are increasingly pursued
independently of Moscow.

In the meantime, U.S. policy must concentrate on the important security agenda with Russia.
First, it must recognize that American security is threatened less by Russia's strength than by its
weakness and incoherence. This suggests immediate attention to the safety and security of
Moscow's nuclear forces and stockpile. The Nunn-Lugar program should be funded fully and
pursued aggressively. (Because American contractors do most of the work, the risk of the
diversion of funds is low.) Second, Washington must begin a comprehensive discussion with
Moscow on the changing nuclear threat. Much has been made by Russian military officials about
their increased reliance on nuclear weapons in the face of their declining conventional readiness.
The Russian deterrent is more than adequate against the U.S. nuclear arsenal, and vice versa. But
that fact need no longer be enshrined in a treaty that is almost 30 years old and is a relic of a
profoundly adversarial relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union. The Anti-
Ballistic Missile Treaty was intended to prevent the development of national missile defenses in
the Cold War security environment. Today, the principal concerns are nuclear threats from the
Iraqs and North Koreas of the world and the possibility of unauthorized releases as nuclear
weapons spread.

Moscow, in fact, lives closer to those threats than Washington does. It ought to be possible to
engage the Russians in a discussion of the changed threat environment, their possible responses,
and the relationship of strategic offensive-force reductions to the deployment of defenses. The
United States should make clear that it prefers to move cooperatively toward a new offense-
defense mix, but that it is prepared to do so unilaterally. Moscow should understand, too, that
any possibilities for sharing technology or information in these areas would depend heavily on its
record -- problematic to date -- on the proliferation of ballistic-missile and other technologies
related to WMD. It would be foolish in the extreme to share defenses with Moscow if it either
leaks or deliberately transfers weapons technologies to the very states against which America is
defending.

Finally, the United States needs to recognize that Russia is a great power, and that we will
always have interests that conflict as well as coincide. The war in Chechnya, located in the oil-
rich Caucasus, is particularly dangerous. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has used the war to stir
nationalism at home while fueling his own political fortunes. The Russian military has been
uncharacteristically blunt and vocal in asserting its duty to defend the integrity of the Russian
Federation -- an unwelcome development in civil-military relations. The long-term effect on
Russia's political culture should not be underestimated. And the war has affected relations
between Russia and its neighbors in the Caucasus, as the Kremlin hurls charges of harboring and
abetting Chechen terrorists against states as diverse as Saudi Arabia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan.
The war is a reminder of the vulnerability of the small, new states around Russia and of
America's interest in their independence. If they can become stronger, they will be less tempting
to Russia. But much depends on the ability of these states to reform their economies and political
systems -- a process, to date, whose success is mixed at best.

COPING WITH ROGUE REGIMES

As history marches toward markets and democracy, some states have been left by the side of the
road. Iraq is the prototype. Saddam Hussein's regime is isolated, his conventional military power
has been severely weakened, his people live in poverty and terror, and he has no useful place in
international politics. He is therefore determined to develop WMD. Nothing will change until
Saddam is gone, so the United States must mobilize whatever resources it can, including support
from his opposition, to remove him.

The regime of Kim Jong Il is so opaque that it is difficult to know its motivations, other than that
they are malign. But North Korea also lives outside of the international system. Like East
Germany, North Korea is the evil twin of a successful regime just across its border. It must fear
its eventual demise from the sheer power and pull of South Korea. Pyongyang, too, has little to
gain and everything to lose from engagement in the international economy. The development of
WMD thus provides the destructive way out for Kim Jong Il.

President Kim Dae Jung of South Korea is attempting to find a peaceful resolution with the north
through engagement. Any U.S. policy toward the north should depend heavily on coordination
with Seoul and Tokyo. In that context, the 1994 framework agreement that attempted to bribe
North Korea into forsaking nuclear weapons cannot easily be set aside. Still, there is a trap
inherent in this approach: sooner or later Pyongyang will threaten to test a missile one too many
times, and the United States will not respond with further benefits. Then what will Kim Jong Il
do? The possibility for miscalculation is very high.

One thing is clear: the United States must approach regimes like North Korea resolutely and
decisively. The Clinton administration has failed here, sometimes threatening to use force and
then backing down, as it often has with Iraq. These regimes are living on borrowed time, so there
need be no sense of panic about them. Rather, the first line of defense should be a clear and
classical statement of deterrence -- if they do acquire WMD, their weapons will be unusable
because any attempt to use them will bring national obliteration. Second, we should accelerate
efforts to defend against these weapons. This is the most important reason to deploy national and
theater missile defenses as soon as possible, to focus attention on U.S. homeland defenses
against chemical and biological agents, and to expand intelligence capabilities against terrorism
of all kinds.

Finally, there is the Iranian regime. Iran's motivation is not to disrupt simply the development of
an international system based on markets and democracy, but to replace it with an alternative:
fundamentalist Islam. Fortunately, the Iranians do not have the kind of reach and power that the
Soviet Union enjoyed in trying to promote its socialist alternative. But Iran's tactics have posed
real problems for U.S. security. It has tried to destabilize moderate Arab states such as Saudi
Arabia, though its relations with the Saudis have improved recently. Iran has also supported
terrorism against America and Western interests and attempted to develop and transfer sensitive
military technologies.
Iran presents special difficulties in the Middle East, a region of core interest to the United States
and to our key ally Israel. Iranian weaponry increasingly threatens Israel directly. As important
as Israel's efforts to reach peace with its Arab neighbors are to the future of the Middle East, they
are not the whole story of stability in the region. Israel has a real security problem, so defense
cooperation with the United States -- particularly in the area of ballistic missile defense -- is
critical. That in turn will help Israel protect itself both through agreements and through enhanced
military power.

Still, it is important to note that there are trends in Iran that bear watching. Mohammad
Khatami's election as president has given some hope of a new course for a country that once
hosted a great and thriving civilization -- though there are questions about how much authority
he exercises. Moreover, Khatami's more moderate domestic views may not translate into more
acceptable behavior abroad. All in all, changes in U.S. policy toward Iran would require changes
in Iranian behavior.

BUILDING A CONSENSUS FOR THE NATIONAL INTEREST

America is blessed with an extraordinary opportunity. It has had no territorial ambitions for
nearly a century. Its national interest has been defined instead by a desire to foster the spread of
freedom, prosperity, and peace. Both the will of the people and the demands of modern
economies accord with that vision of the future. But even America's advantages offer no
guarantees of success. It is up to America's presidential leadership and policy to bridge the gap
between tomorrow's possibilities and today's realities.

The president must speak to the American people about national priorities and intentions and
work with Congress to focus foreign policy around the national interest. The problem today is
not an absence of bipartisan spirit in Congress or the American people's disinterest. It is the
existence of a vacuum. In the absence of a compelling vision, parochial interests are filling the
void.

Foreign policy in a Republican administration will most certainly be internationalist; the leading
contenders in the party's presidential race have strong credentials in that regard. But it will also
proceed from the firm ground of the national interest, not from the interests of an illusory
international community. America can exercise power without arrogance and pursue its interests
without hectoring and bluster. When it does so in concert with those who share its core values,
the world becomes more prosperous, democratic, and peaceful. That has been America's special
role in the past, and it should be again as we enter the next century.